I thought I was dying | Postpartum Preeclampsia (Part 1)

It's no surprise that being pregnant with one child can be difficult, but throw another baby in there and it's a completely different ballgame.  For me, being pregnant with twins was actually not as challenging as I thought it would.  It was a fairly "easy" and uneventful twin pregnancy and up until the last month, no complications.  I did have a little scare very early on where I thought we were having another miscarriage, but turned out it was just twins!

The last month of my pregnancy was nothing out of the norm.  I had the usual swelling and some weight gain.  We had a lot going on with not only two kids to take care of but a huge move from Florida to Indiana at 30 weeks pregnant.  I didn't feel stressed, but I'm sure I was a little not to mention very exhausted.  


The Tuesday before I was induced, I was having a pain in my right leg I couldn't get rid of.  I went to my doctor, who checked me out and everything seemed fine.  My blood pressure was perfect and had been my entire pregnancy.  My swelling was nothing to be concerned about either.  He sent me over to the hospital to be on the safe side and to be checked out for a blood clot.  Again, everything seemed fine.  My doctor scheduled my induction for Friday morning because he would be heading out of town for the weekend and I wanted to make sure it was him who delivered.  He also let me know that he would be on call the next two days if I needed him and that he wouldn't send me home if I ended up in triage.

I was having mild contractions, but decided I was fine to wait until Friday.  I have yet to write about my birth story and I promise that is coming.  Four kids under four years of age has been a lot, so my blog has taken a back seat over the last 6 months.

Without going into too much detail, my blood pressure was high when I arrived at the hospital.  The nurse asked me if I was nervous and I assured her that I wasn't.  I was definitely anxious because we had been waiting a few hours to get checked in, but not nervous and 

I felt fine.

My delivery went crazy fast.  They started me on Pitocin and within one hour, I was being rushed to the OR to deliver Molly first.  Being sent to the OR is standard routine for multiples.  My epidural hadn't even set in and here she was, being pushed out in two short pushes.

Kathryn came via c-section due to some complications that I will share at another time.  Other than being terrified of the surgery, after giving birth to the twins, 

I felt fine. 

I found out my blood pressure dropped pretty low during delivery, but came back up without any problems.  After being sent to recovery and getting to love on our girls, I found out that my blood pressure was back up again.  I was having some more swelling in my legs, but felt fine for just giving birth two different ways in two hours.

At one point, it got pretty high and they decided to give me some blood pressure meds to help bring it down.

It didn't work but I felt fine.  No headaches, no blurred vision, nothing.

Maybe it was the adrenaline.  Maybe it was the exhaustion.  Maybe it was the overwhelming amount of emotions I was going through, but there was nothing that screamed "you're getting close to dying" to me.

It turns out that I was not ok and after the blood pressure meds weren't working, I was immediately sent to the high risk unit to be monitored and be put on magnesium.

I found out that I was having Preeclampsia AFTER delivery and some of the scariest moments of my life were to follow.

Part 2 coming soon.